I have just seen some of the release notes of the latest TP-Link Tapo app, and it mentions some new sensors and a Hub for the Tapo environment.
Smart Spotlights: A close-up partial lighting to brighten your loved exhibits.
Tapo Hub: Connect wirelessly with a wide range of smart devices and make them work together.
Motion Sensor: Know when there is movement.
Contact Sensor: Know when doors/windows are opened or closed.
Smart Button: Tap or rotate to control lights and appliances.
Smart Switch: Make your traditional lighting smart.
Added support for IFTTT.
Improved the algorithm of Sync-to-Sound.
I am curious about the Hub and devices, as Tapo has an official integration with SmartThings, which unfortunately misses out on the cameras, but I have hopes that the sensors will work at some point.
The cameras are fairly cheap and provide a decent quality, the plugs are the same. So hopefully the sensors and the hub will stay in the same league. The promissing part is that TP-Link promissed HomeKit compatibility in the last CES when these devices were originally introduced and TP-Link is also part of the Matter work group.
The sensors:
The switch:
And the dimmer switch:
Not so much information yet about the devices, as many of them not even linked on the official website, but Google’s robots already bookmarked them.
The last bit which makes me interested about all the sensors, is the sub 1Ghz frequency what they supposed to use. @JDRoberts, any idea what protocol is that supposed to be? Is there anywhere in the Matter specs any sub 1Ghz solutions?
Matter doesn’t actually define any messaging frequency, they are in a layer above all that. They just say it has to support IPv6 addresses, but you can do that with a hub, not the individual device, which is how all the Zigbee options will work like Philips Hue bulbs.
Although all the Matter examples use WiFi and Thread, a device doesn’t have to use either as long as it is connected to a Matter-compatible hub with WiFi. of course that doesn’t mean just any hub—it might work only with the hub of its own brand and that would still meet the Matter requirement.
So in this case it could even be a proprietary frequency.
The Tapo Hub operate as a bridge between Tapo’s 922MHz sensors and your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network.
I suspect we will see a lot of end devices that don’t work with Matter on their own, but require their own brand’s hub to get to Matter.
For example, this is certainly how Lutron Caseta light switches will work.
will there be support for the hub itself to control the chime on smartthings? the devices connect to the H100 work fine but i wanted to also use the chime function
of course that doesn’t mean just any hub—it might work only with the hub of its own brand and that would still meet the Matter requirement.
Not sure why Amazon classifies it as such.